Sunday, June 14, 2009
A tidbit of fun from your blog mom (Spanish-language love & wedding songs)
Hi everybody,
I've been pretty scarce these last few weeks, sorry. It's because I've been trying to boost my bands' web presence to try and drum up some wedding business. With the economy the way it is, sadly, many brides are arriving at their ceremonies and receptions with - iPods! Sigh.
So anyway, one of the things I've been doing is recording little snippets of wedding songs and, even though I'll probably never do a Hispanic wedding because I'm such a gringo, I love the Mexican/Spanish love songs and have put a few of them on my new blog - including the one Alma asked for, "Un Rinconcito del Cielo." You can have a listen:
Wedding songs in Spanish.
Let me know what you think!
I'll be recapping MEPS tomorrow...
I've been pretty scarce these last few weeks, sorry. It's because I've been trying to boost my bands' web presence to try and drum up some wedding business. With the economy the way it is, sadly, many brides are arriving at their ceremonies and receptions with - iPods! Sigh.
So anyway, one of the things I've been doing is recording little snippets of wedding songs and, even though I'll probably never do a Hispanic wedding because I'm such a gringo, I love the Mexican/Spanish love songs and have put a few of them on my new blog - including the one Alma asked for, "Un Rinconcito del Cielo." You can have a listen:
Wedding songs in Spanish.
Let me know what you think!
I'll be recapping MEPS tomorrow...
Labels: announcements
Friday, March 27, 2009
Frustrated with the closed-captions? Send an email of complaint to Univision!
Hi all,
Carlos appended this link to his last comment, and we should all send them emails:
http://www.univision.net/corp/es/contact.jsp
I'd say, don't be intimidated that the form is in Spanish, you can fill it in using English! They should know there are a lot of us!
Thank you Carlos!
Carlos appended this link to his last comment, and we should all send them emails:
http://www.univision.net/corp/es/contact.jsp
I'd say, don't be intimidated that the form is in Spanish, you can fill it in using English! They should know there are a lot of us!
Thank you Carlos!
Labels: announcements
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Where, oh where have our captions gone?
Folks, this is Schoolmarm Jeanne and you know I have to weigh in on this since captions r us in my field. There are several things going on with the captions on Univision and other networks at the moment. For those who do not yet know me, I have been here most of the last two years until just recently when my schedule got nutty, and in my real life I am a school administrator at a school that exclusively serves students who are deaf or hard of hearing. I have had captioned television since 1980 when it first arrived on the scene, and never, ever turn off the captions; I’ve kept up with the issues nationally regarding captions—this is an especially hot topic at the moment since it appears that the current digital converter box is not especially compatible with the caption decoder chip in the older televisions that are not digital. So deaf folks trying to access the digital signal through the air are finding they cannot get their captions anymore.
At the end of this post, I have included the additional information on Spanish Language Programming directly from FCC fact sheet website—which are slightly different than the NIDCD information states (one of my favorite websites, by the way, and I’m glad to see you using it, Carlos). The NIDCD info is primarily about English language programming and they seem to have an error in the Spanish programming statement…..my apologies that I haven’t gotten adept at making the URL links work, you’ll have to cut and paste to get to the FCC fact sheet.
How closed captions are prepared: a human being (it’s not yet ready for the linguistic nuances of voice to digital transcribing yet, folks) must transcribe the audio track. Sometimes the captioner has a script, sometimes not. The person captioning can mix up sounds. Thus, in Spanish, the caption might read that the character is trying to “break the heaven (cielo)” when he or she was trying to “break the ice (hielo).” I actually saw this caption blooper on Yo Amo a Juan Q early in the program once and caught it only because a) I was recapping and b) I was very familiar with caption bloopers. There’s a Deaf online magazine called DeafDigest that has a caption blooper of the week every week!
Captioners are trained in programs like those for court reporters (sometimes the same programs). Each captioner must create his or her own personal “dictionary” of sound transcriptions that are merged to form the words heard—there is not a standard dictionary and I could not tell you why for the life of me.
This is why you sometimes see some funny things in live captioning, like when the President speaks, and then suddenly the mess becomes a full word. They work in words and syllable-like units. The initial dictionary must be about 10K words/syllable units before a trainee is ready to go out professionally and speed is an issue. Still, they hit the wrong keys in live captioning. This happens less in pre-recorded captions, but it happens (and may be the similar sounds, noted above). Melinama has noted in a previous thread that Univision is using live captioners. There is no way on earth they can be listening to even ten minutes of the rapid-fire dialogue we hear and be able to caption it all, especially if they have no script in front of them. I can’t type as fast as people talk, can you? I couldn’t take shorthand that fast and that accurately back in the days I did shorthand, either. Even with their shortcuts in their personal caption bank dictionaries, they can only catch part of what is being said live.
Watch a live captioned news special in either English or Spanish—the captions have all kinds of interesting differences from pre-recorded and pre-captioned programs. This is not a local provider problem, because it is occurring nationwide on Univision primarily, by the way. It’s definitely a network problem.
Back to the general captioning process, and pardon me for sidebars: the pre-recorded audio/video track and the caption track then get merged by the network so they match--theoretically, and when the local cable station plays back the video/audio for airing, the caption transmission equipment must be activated also. However, the equipment they are using for playback and airing locally must match the equipment on which the tracks were prepared and must have the same type of technology. It must merge and display all the tracks with appropriate timing, or your television screen comes up with a caption garble that you can’t resolve by turning it on and off, or pausing-restarting with something you have recorded, etc. (remember the old videotapes? They would get stretched and you’d have to manually “track” so they wouldn’t break up the picture and sound? This is similar but there is no correcting it at the user’s end). The video/audio track will be fine in the transmission from your local provider or national network, but the local provider’s captions will be terrible. (But as we have noted, this IS a problem at Univision at the moment. Others may be having it as well….see below). My local provider had problems with total garble on Univision when I came here five years ago. I complained, and they discovered they had outdated caption playback technology—they had to update it and totally replaced their caption playback technology/equipment.
Here’s what’s happening now:
First, some stations are now transitioning to digital transmission. Caption playback equipment is in your local cable service provider’s offices and may or may not be capable of handling digital---so far, the transmission has all been analog for the most part and the playback equipment handles analog captions. Since it’s happening nationwide, there may be other factors, however. In analog captioning, I noted that at least with my provider, there were always two characters for an accented vowel. They would caption “maás” for más. This was because the captioning equipment was displaying the “place marker” that gets put into some text programs for an accented character. There were other flaws like that, too. NOW, I am noticing they have cleaned that up. They are also slowing the captions (some of you have noted that, too) and stripped out some of the words—which is likely so they can begin building the transmission merge between captions and video/audio tracks.
These are just a couple of the factors I am fairly certain are influencing our captions. They remind me of the early days of captioning (1980-1985) when the captions said only half of what the characters did (and my deaf friends would look at me with the “what did he/she REALLY say?” look. But it was too late to interpret as the action moved on too fast. As captioners got more proficient and as the tracks got merged better without junk captions (garble that shows up when the tracks are mismatched), more of what the characters said was in the captions. Live captioners never get all the words, in my experience, that the speakers are saying unless there are large gaps in what the speakers say—as in some sports programming with occasional commenting. If Univision is hiring live captioners—they may be using trainees, which would account for some of the issues.
Finally, the FCC rules for Spanish language programming are different until 2010. (Also some of the rules for HDTV transmission are different, even if it is a form of digital). Have patience; the captions are actually clearer now than they have been since the Univision folks who’ve hired the captioners are changing their transmission format (analog to digital to match signals) although they are having growing pains and the captions are way slow. They have awhile to get it right, unfortunately for us, as the section below shows.
See below and thanks for your interest! (The entire following section is quoted from the FCC fact sheet website).
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/closedcaption.html
“Different closed captioning schedules apply to new, pre-rule, and Spanish language programming.
"New" Programming
As of January 1, 2006, all “new” English language programming, defined as analog programming first published or exhibited on or after January 1, 1998, and digital programming first aired on or after July 1, 2002, must be captioned, with some exceptions.
"Pre-Rule" English Programming
Analog programming first shown before January 1, 1998, and digital programming first shown before July 1, 2002, are called “Pre-Rule Programming.” Pre-Rule Programming that is not exempt from the closed captioning rules must be captioned as follows:
* January 1, 2003, to December 31, 2007: 30 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
* January 1, 2008, and thereafter: 75 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
Spanish Language Programming
Because captioning is fairly new to Spanish language program providers, the FCC allows them a longer time to provide captioned programming. All Spanish language programming that was first shown after January 1, 1998, must be captioned by 2010 with some exemptions. The following schedule applies to Spanish language “new” and non-exempt programming, or programming shown after January 1, 1998:
* January 1, 2004, to December 31, 2006: 900 hours of programming per channel per quarter or all of the new, non-exempt Spanish language programming on that channel, whichever is less.
* January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2009: 1350 hours of programming per channel per quarter or all of the new, non-exempt Spanish language programming on that channel, whichever is less.
* January 1, 2010, and thereafter: 100 percent of all programming, with some exceptions.
For Spanish language “Pre-Rule Programming” (first shown before January 1, 1998) that is not exempt from the closed captioning rules, the following schedule applies:
* January 1, 2005, to December 31, 2011: 30 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
* January 1, 2012, and thereafter: 75 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
For more information on the FCC’s closed captioning rules and requirements, go to www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/caption.html.”
Jeanne
At the end of this post, I have included the additional information on Spanish Language Programming directly from FCC fact sheet website—which are slightly different than the NIDCD information states (one of my favorite websites, by the way, and I’m glad to see you using it, Carlos). The NIDCD info is primarily about English language programming and they seem to have an error in the Spanish programming statement…..my apologies that I haven’t gotten adept at making the URL links work, you’ll have to cut and paste to get to the FCC fact sheet.
How closed captions are prepared: a human being (it’s not yet ready for the linguistic nuances of voice to digital transcribing yet, folks) must transcribe the audio track. Sometimes the captioner has a script, sometimes not. The person captioning can mix up sounds. Thus, in Spanish, the caption might read that the character is trying to “break the heaven (cielo)” when he or she was trying to “break the ice (hielo).” I actually saw this caption blooper on Yo Amo a Juan Q early in the program once and caught it only because a) I was recapping and b) I was very familiar with caption bloopers. There’s a Deaf online magazine called DeafDigest that has a caption blooper of the week every week!
Captioners are trained in programs like those for court reporters (sometimes the same programs). Each captioner must create his or her own personal “dictionary” of sound transcriptions that are merged to form the words heard—there is not a standard dictionary and I could not tell you why for the life of me.
This is why you sometimes see some funny things in live captioning, like when the President speaks, and then suddenly the mess becomes a full word. They work in words and syllable-like units. The initial dictionary must be about 10K words/syllable units before a trainee is ready to go out professionally and speed is an issue. Still, they hit the wrong keys in live captioning. This happens less in pre-recorded captions, but it happens (and may be the similar sounds, noted above). Melinama has noted in a previous thread that Univision is using live captioners. There is no way on earth they can be listening to even ten minutes of the rapid-fire dialogue we hear and be able to caption it all, especially if they have no script in front of them. I can’t type as fast as people talk, can you? I couldn’t take shorthand that fast and that accurately back in the days I did shorthand, either. Even with their shortcuts in their personal caption bank dictionaries, they can only catch part of what is being said live.
Watch a live captioned news special in either English or Spanish—the captions have all kinds of interesting differences from pre-recorded and pre-captioned programs. This is not a local provider problem, because it is occurring nationwide on Univision primarily, by the way. It’s definitely a network problem.
Back to the general captioning process, and pardon me for sidebars: the pre-recorded audio/video track and the caption track then get merged by the network so they match--theoretically, and when the local cable station plays back the video/audio for airing, the caption transmission equipment must be activated also. However, the equipment they are using for playback and airing locally must match the equipment on which the tracks were prepared and must have the same type of technology. It must merge and display all the tracks with appropriate timing, or your television screen comes up with a caption garble that you can’t resolve by turning it on and off, or pausing-restarting with something you have recorded, etc. (remember the old videotapes? They would get stretched and you’d have to manually “track” so they wouldn’t break up the picture and sound? This is similar but there is no correcting it at the user’s end). The video/audio track will be fine in the transmission from your local provider or national network, but the local provider’s captions will be terrible. (But as we have noted, this IS a problem at Univision at the moment. Others may be having it as well….see below). My local provider had problems with total garble on Univision when I came here five years ago. I complained, and they discovered they had outdated caption playback technology—they had to update it and totally replaced their caption playback technology/equipment.
Here’s what’s happening now:
First, some stations are now transitioning to digital transmission. Caption playback equipment is in your local cable service provider’s offices and may or may not be capable of handling digital---so far, the transmission has all been analog for the most part and the playback equipment handles analog captions. Since it’s happening nationwide, there may be other factors, however. In analog captioning, I noted that at least with my provider, there were always two characters for an accented vowel. They would caption “maás” for más. This was because the captioning equipment was displaying the “place marker” that gets put into some text programs for an accented character. There were other flaws like that, too. NOW, I am noticing they have cleaned that up. They are also slowing the captions (some of you have noted that, too) and stripped out some of the words—which is likely so they can begin building the transmission merge between captions and video/audio tracks.
These are just a couple of the factors I am fairly certain are influencing our captions. They remind me of the early days of captioning (1980-1985) when the captions said only half of what the characters did (and my deaf friends would look at me with the “what did he/she REALLY say?” look. But it was too late to interpret as the action moved on too fast. As captioners got more proficient and as the tracks got merged better without junk captions (garble that shows up when the tracks are mismatched), more of what the characters said was in the captions. Live captioners never get all the words, in my experience, that the speakers are saying unless there are large gaps in what the speakers say—as in some sports programming with occasional commenting. If Univision is hiring live captioners—they may be using trainees, which would account for some of the issues.
Finally, the FCC rules for Spanish language programming are different until 2010. (Also some of the rules for HDTV transmission are different, even if it is a form of digital). Have patience; the captions are actually clearer now than they have been since the Univision folks who’ve hired the captioners are changing their transmission format (analog to digital to match signals) although they are having growing pains and the captions are way slow. They have awhile to get it right, unfortunately for us, as the section below shows.
See below and thanks for your interest! (The entire following section is quoted from the FCC fact sheet website).
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/closedcaption.html
“Different closed captioning schedules apply to new, pre-rule, and Spanish language programming.
"New" Programming
As of January 1, 2006, all “new” English language programming, defined as analog programming first published or exhibited on or after January 1, 1998, and digital programming first aired on or after July 1, 2002, must be captioned, with some exceptions.
"Pre-Rule" English Programming
Analog programming first shown before January 1, 1998, and digital programming first shown before July 1, 2002, are called “Pre-Rule Programming.” Pre-Rule Programming that is not exempt from the closed captioning rules must be captioned as follows:
* January 1, 2003, to December 31, 2007: 30 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
* January 1, 2008, and thereafter: 75 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
Spanish Language Programming
Because captioning is fairly new to Spanish language program providers, the FCC allows them a longer time to provide captioned programming. All Spanish language programming that was first shown after January 1, 1998, must be captioned by 2010 with some exemptions. The following schedule applies to Spanish language “new” and non-exempt programming, or programming shown after January 1, 1998:
* January 1, 2004, to December 31, 2006: 900 hours of programming per channel per quarter or all of the new, non-exempt Spanish language programming on that channel, whichever is less.
* January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2009: 1350 hours of programming per channel per quarter or all of the new, non-exempt Spanish language programming on that channel, whichever is less.
* January 1, 2010, and thereafter: 100 percent of all programming, with some exceptions.
For Spanish language “Pre-Rule Programming” (first shown before January 1, 1998) that is not exempt from the closed captioning rules, the following schedule applies:
* January 1, 2005, to December 31, 2011: 30 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
* January 1, 2012, and thereafter: 75 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
For more information on the FCC’s closed captioning rules and requirements, go to www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/caption.html.”
Jeanne
Labels: announcements
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
In which Carlos reminds us that functional closed captions are REQUIRED BY LAW!
THANK YOU CARLOS for providing this information. Now, what to do about it?
From his link at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders:
The law
From his link at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders:
The law
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 requires that businesses and public accommodations ensure that disabled individuals are not excluded from or denied services because of the absence of auxiliary aids. Captions are considered one type of auxiliary aid.
Since the passage of the ADA, the use of captioning has expanded. Entertainment, educational, informational, and training materials are captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences at the time they are produced and distributed.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt rules requiring closed captioning of most television programming.Captions and the FCC
The FCC rules on closed captioning became effective January 1, 1998. They require people or companies that distribute television programs directly to home viewers to make sure those programs are captioned.Labels: announcements
Continuing Univision Caption problem - and attempts to solve it.
Hi all,
Since Ferro's post last Friday - during which we tentatively decided the disastrous meltdown of the Univision subtitles started on March 16 - I've been in touch with a few people at Univision and one of our other recappers who "knows somebody" there has done the same.
There is a possibility this problem results from a cost-cutting measure at Univision: that they stopped paying for pre-recorded captions and have been trying to get by with live captioners. We are hoping they'll realize what they're offering now is utterly unusable and will go back to the previous system. In the mean time, I'll try to keep you posted.
Since Ferro's post last Friday - during which we tentatively decided the disastrous meltdown of the Univision subtitles started on March 16 - I've been in touch with a few people at Univision and one of our other recappers who "knows somebody" there has done the same.
There is a possibility this problem results from a cost-cutting measure at Univision: that they stopped paying for pre-recorded captions and have been trying to get by with live captioners. We are hoping they'll realize what they're offering now is utterly unusable and will go back to the previous system. In the mean time, I'll try to keep you posted.
Labels: announcements
Friday, March 20, 2009
What is going on with the Univision Captions?
I thought since we are linked from Univision now, a post devoted to the messed up captions might be seen by somebody. I get my recap updates through the bloglines.com site, today I looked at the Caray Caray updates, every single one started with "my captions are still missing/messed up/30 seconds behind." I'm having the same problem as well, so this isn't connected to just one cable company or one part of the country, it has to be from the network.
Univision - what's going on with the captions? Thank you!
Univision - what's going on with the captions? Thank you!
Labels: announcements
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Univision links to Caray Caray!
Hi everybody,
Is that cool or what? Maria Milligan at Univision wrote me and said she had added us to this page of links, and asked if I'd link back to Univision, so I did (see bottom of left sidebar).
Hah!
Is that cool or what? Maria Milligan at Univision wrote me and said she had added us to this page of links, and asked if I'd link back to Univision, so I did (see bottom of left sidebar).
Hah!
Labels: announcements
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
More than half a million visits to Caray, Caray!
Hello all,
If you're interested you can click the tiny icon at the bottom of the left column and see our statistics - as of right now, there have actually been more than 607,000 visits because I had to reset the counter in March of 2007. At the moment we average 696 visits per day.
Hello everybody!
Melinama
Labels: announcements
Thursday, January 01, 2009
No Tontas Wed. but Feliz Ano Nuevo!!!
Feliz Ano nuevo a todo la familia de Caray Caray!!
Wishing you happiness, peace, and prosperity in the coming year...and much telenovela joy. Hey at least Fuego will end sometime this year for sure.... ;)
May we have many fun adventures together!!!
Labels: announcements, Fuego, Tontas
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Caray reader says hi, asks about "Lazos de Amor"
I got the nicest email from the other day from a Caray lurker who really liked Lazos de Amor, if anyone's interested:
Hey Julie,If anyone wants to talk about the Lazos de Amor ending, post your comments! Thanks!
I know you don't know me but, My name is Antoine and my mom and I have been hanging out at Caray Caray for the last two years or so. Long story short: She started watching La Fea Mas Bella ( even though she doesn't know Spanish). She kept talking about what she thought was happening so I started looking for an English translation or synopsis of the show and I came across Caray Caray. Since then we've shared many laughs with you guys.
Well on to the matter at hand. I recently bought a copy of "Lazos de Amor". Which is very good, so I was wondering if you, or if anyone you know on the board have seen it? and if so what did you think? The ending left my head spinning. If you've got fifteen dollars to spend and you haven't seen it you should give it a shot.
I hope you and yours are having a great holiday season and pass along to the rest of the caray caray people that "La Fea Mas Bella" and "Juan Querendon" wouldn't have been the same without you all!
Sincerely,
Antoine
P.S. Paula DeVille and Alicia Ferrera were misunderstood! ha ha ha!
Labels: announcements
Sunday, December 07, 2008
An important announcement for all our readers.
Hello friends,
Lately there have been a bunch of critical comments from mostly-anonymous readers complaining about everything from the word "ass" to supposedly racist statements to political banter that became painful. I am losing one of my dearest recappers because she can't take it anymore, and you are going to miss her as I will.
As I have pointed out before, all recappers do this for free, for love of the Spanish language and the Latin cultures and general joy in writing and critiquing. It takes hours and hours. Have you noticed there are no ads on this site? Everybody is doing it out of generosity, to bring something good to our community of telenovela fans! So if you, reader, decide to criticize a recap or a recapper, that's a very arrogant decision. Somebody gives you something for free and you say it isn't perfect?
Because I don't want fights on my blog, and I don't want my recappers hurt or feeling unappreciated, these are the rules, once again:
OK, that's all for now.
And my great thanks to our mostly wonderful, supportive, appreciative readers. The positive comments from our smart, funny fans with so many different backgrounds are really the only payback we get for our work and we're very glad to get them.
Lately there have been a bunch of critical comments from mostly-anonymous readers complaining about everything from the word "ass" to supposedly racist statements to political banter that became painful. I am losing one of my dearest recappers because she can't take it anymore, and you are going to miss her as I will.
As I have pointed out before, all recappers do this for free, for love of the Spanish language and the Latin cultures and general joy in writing and critiquing. It takes hours and hours. Have you noticed there are no ads on this site? Everybody is doing it out of generosity, to bring something good to our community of telenovela fans! So if you, reader, decide to criticize a recap or a recapper, that's a very arrogant decision. Somebody gives you something for free and you say it isn't perfect?
Because I don't want fights on my blog, and I don't want my recappers hurt or feeling unappreciated, these are the rules, once again:
- NO SPOILERS - do not tell or hint at anything that will happen in upcoming episodes. We all know the shows air much sooner in Mexico and that the future shows are available on YouTube etc. but we DON'T ALLOW THAT INFORMATION HERE because it spoils the fun for many of our readers.
- NO GOSSIP ABOUT ACTORS' PRIVATE LIVES - that also spoils the fun for many readers. If you want to dish dirt about celebrities there are many other places you can do it.
- NO CRITICIZING OF RECAPS OR RECAPPERS - if you don't like what we offer, go elsewhere. I don't want to lose more recappers because they feel unappreciated! And if you think the recap is posted too late, write your own. The recappers here have jobs and families. They have taken time away from their families and stayed up WAY too late at night in order to write these posts for you! So thank them!
OK, that's all for now.
And my great thanks to our mostly wonderful, supportive, appreciative readers. The positive comments from our smart, funny fans with so many different backgrounds are really the only payback we get for our work and we're very glad to get them.
Labels: announcements
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Nov.4th Tues. Willa Reminds You All: NO Telenovelas Tonight - VOTE-VOTE-VOTE-THEN WATCH DESTINOS 2008
Tonight the world changing election will be featured on Univision and on Telemundo as well as most English stations, so none of our favorite characters will be seen until Wednesday night. Willa hopes you have all voted, if not, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??
You can vote for best picture if you have already voted at the polls. Willa isn't sure what look will be best when FELS is over.
Labels: announcements, Fuego
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Attention recappers: is your picture in the sidebar? If not, send me one!
Hello y'all,
It's been ages since I got any new recapper pictures. Don't be shy! If you're not up there, please send a jpg picture file to me at caray@mappamundi.com! Thanks!
It's been ages since I got any new recapper pictures. Don't be shy! If you're not up there, please send a jpg picture file to me at caray@mappamundi.com! Thanks!
Labels: announcements
Saturday, October 04, 2008
OT: Blog Mom Paints Sarah Palin Postcard! For Sale!
Yes, I know I said no politics. I know I know! And I know this is not an art blog! I know! I know!But, I just painted this and I liked it so much I've ordered postcards made up, they should arrive by October 6 or so. You can buy a pack of five postcards for $5.00 plus $2.00 handling via PayPal:
Click on the picture for a larger view.
OK, don't flame me. Now back to our regularly scheduled activities...
Labels: announcements, humor
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Ayyyyyy Yyyyyyyayyyyyyyy yyaaaaa Ayyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Que Viiiiiivvvvvvaaaaa Meeeexxxxxxicccccoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
El Grito Vive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (last year's)
Felicidades MEXICO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tambien felicidades a Costa Rica, a Nicaragua, a El Salvador, a Honduras, y a Guatamala!!!!
El Grito Vive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (last year's)
Felicidades MEXICO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tambien felicidades a Costa Rica, a Nicaragua, a El Salvador, a Honduras, y a Guatamala!!!!
Labels: announcements
Saturday, April 26, 2008
The worldwide Caray, Caray! conspiracy
Hi all,
Just checked our Sitemeter (the little tiny green box at the bottom of the sidebar). We have had (as of just now) 305,931 visitors, with a current average of 888 visits per day.
In the last couple hours people have visited us from (for instance): Indonesia, Egypt, Israel, Slovakia, Romania, Russia, Lithuania, Albania, the Czech Republic, Germany, and England.
Long live the telenovelas!
Just checked our Sitemeter (the little tiny green box at the bottom of the sidebar). We have had (as of just now) 305,931 visitors, with a current average of 888 visits per day.
In the last couple hours people have visited us from (for instance): Indonesia, Egypt, Israel, Slovakia, Romania, Russia, Lithuania, Albania, the Czech Republic, Germany, and England.
Long live the telenovelas!
Labels: announcements
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
A query from Canada
A fan from Waterloo Canada writes:
Anybody know about Palabras de Mujers?
I have been following Caray! Caray! and the interminable saga of "Destilando Amor", or "The Misadventures of a Supremely Stupid Hero", and enjoying the recaps immensely. As you can guess, TLN, the latino network out of Toronto, Canada is away behind both the U.S and Mexico in its lineup of telenovela broadcasts. Destilando is going to end next week for us.
HOWEVER, the bums at TLN are NOT showing "Pasion" as the next novela in line!!!!!! It is something called "Palabras de Mujers". Do you know anything about the story line of this thing? Needless to say, I am really disappointed, and emailed them to say so.
The good thing is that my Spanish is improving to the point where I can follow the story, and some conversations I can grasp 70% of what is being said. However, it helps to have read the recaps before hand, which ups my comprehension quite a bit more. So.... keep up the great work. You do have your fans.
Anybody know about Palabras de Mujers?
Labels: announcements, Destilando
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
"What happened to the sidebars" - recappers, please read!
Hi,
The "disappearing sidebar syndrome" happens in Internet Explorer - I read on firefox, which doesn't do that, so I didn't know it had happened.
It happens when somebody posts something which is wider than the right text column and can't be divided - either a picture which is too big, or (in this case) website URLs which are so long they don't fit on one line. Then Internet Explorer makes the right column wider and there is no longer any room for the left sidebar so it gets bumped to the bottom.
I edited the two files with long URLs and now the sidebar should be back.
Since I don't browse with IE, please let me know if this happens again.
Recappers - reminder (1) best to input your file either right on the blogger site or as a text file, if you do it in word save as a text file before proceeding because if you cut-and-paste a WORD document many odd things creep into your files.
Also (2) when you post links, make the text comment shorter than the long URL.
Thanks all!
The "disappearing sidebar syndrome" happens in Internet Explorer - I read on firefox, which doesn't do that, so I didn't know it had happened.
It happens when somebody posts something which is wider than the right text column and can't be divided - either a picture which is too big, or (in this case) website URLs which are so long they don't fit on one line. Then Internet Explorer makes the right column wider and there is no longer any room for the left sidebar so it gets bumped to the bottom.
I edited the two files with long URLs and now the sidebar should be back.
Since I don't browse with IE, please let me know if this happens again.
Recappers - reminder (1) best to input your file either right on the blogger site or as a text file, if you do it in word save as a text file before proceeding because if you cut-and-paste a WORD document many odd things creep into your files.
Also (2) when you post links, make the text comment shorter than the long URL.
Thanks all!
Labels: announcements
Monday, January 21, 2008
New shows, new sidebar, recappers please check, and - we need a new recapper:?
And now, on to "Guapos" - you will note we don't yet have a Thursday recapper for Guapos AND we don't have a Tuesday recapper for "Juan" unless I've missed an email ...
... speaking of which, recappers, please look over what I've put in the sidebar and if I got it wrong - if I've left you out by accident or you are mistakenly listed - let me know quanto antes!
Anybody new or old want to give recapping a try?
... speaking of which, recappers, please look over what I've put in the sidebar and if I got it wrong - if I've left you out by accident or you are mistakenly listed - let me know quanto antes!
Anybody new or old want to give recapping a try?
Labels: announcements, guapos, Juan, recappers-needed
A ***SPECIAL*** thanks to our brave and patient Amar recappers....
... I never watched Amar Sin Limites so I never commented on their posts -- but I think the people who slogged through this show deserve heaps of praise and appreciation! Readers, please feel free to add your own praise and appreciation below.
Labels: amar, announcements
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